I have continued to bang away at the utter incompetence of the Tea Party at doing anything more than shitting in the nursery. People like Bard, who hurl incompetent at Obama without explanation, would benefit from learning a) how government actually works, and b) how forging alliances is actually necessary to accomplish things. So I'll turn away from the ACA, where I disagree with Bard, to the NSA, where I agree with him. Fascinating article in the October 7, 2013 New Yorker on the release of the Wiki Leak and Snowden material. I'll give you a teaser here:

Quote:

by Ken Auletta October 7, 2013

At eight-thirty on the morning of June 21st, Alan Rusbridger, the unflappable editor of the Guardian, Britain’s liberal daily, was in his office, absorbing a lecture from Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister David Cameron. Accompanying Heywood was Craig Oliver, Cameron’s director of communications. The deputy editor, Paul Johnson, joined them in Rusbridger’s office, overlooking the Regent’s Canal, which runs behind King’s Cross station, in North London. According to Rusbridger, Heywood told him, in a steely voice, “The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Attorney General, and others in government are extremely concerned about what you’re doing.”

Since June 5th, the Guardian had been publishing top-secret digital files provided by Edward Snowden, a former contract employee of the National Security Agency. In a series of articles, the paper revealed that the N.S.A., in the name of combatting terrorism, had monitored millions of phone calls and e-mails as well as the private deliberations of allied governments. It also revealed, again relying on Snowden’s documents, that, four years earlier, the Government Communications Headquarters (G.C.H.Q.), Britain’s counterpart to the N.S.A., had eavesdropped on the communications of other nations attending the G20 summit, in London.

Such articles have become a trademark of the Guardian. In 2009, it published the first in a torrent of stories revealing how Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids had bribed the police and hacked into the phones of celebrities, politicians, and the Royal Family. In 2010, the Guardian published a trove of WikiLeaks documents that disclosed confidential conversations among diplomats of the United States, Britain, and other governments, and exposed atrocities that were committed in Iraq and Afghanistan; in August, Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, a private in the U.S. Army, was sentenced to up to thirty-five years in prison for his role in the leak.

What to do about the excesses of the NSA, and the downside of reckless military adventures are perhaps the only issue that I agree with Rand Paul on. The problem with Rand Paul is not that he is wrong on these, or any other issues. The problem is that the mindset of the far right/Tea baggers makes them unable, or inept, at forging the types of coalitions that are necessary to actually achieve their goals.

The Auletta article makes it clear that the Obama administration has continued the emphasis on security started by the Bush administration. Bard is correct, I believe, on the issue of creeping bureaucracies that will work first to perpetuate themselves. But he is wrong on blaming much of it on Obama. The TSA and NSA were created during the Bush administration, and much of the early eavesdropping was extra-legal. It was the great middle--80% of the Reps and Dems--that created a legislative framework to allow this to go on.

My great disagreement with this approach is multifold. First, it encroaches on our freedom. Second, it is hideously expensive, and at some point its great size makes turning the reams of data into meaningful information virtually impossible. Third, it creates the illusion, but not the reality of security. The TSA and NSA ramped up while I was still working for the Port of Oakland, which runs Oakland airport. It was clear to most everyone inside the airline industry that the security measures adopted were largely window dressing, created as a jobs program for the Republicans in the country to salute. The nature of the program was cumbersome, and most people on the inside of the security business knew that the next attack would involve either working around "airline security", or a different approach. As usual, the military and security businesses are rear-looking, not forward looking, and fight the last war or hijacking, not the current one.

Attacks on Al Queda, although better done under Obama than under Bush, have the same problem. When looking at the tides of change, or invention, in history, it becomes clear that such changes do not depend on a single person or organization. If not Alexander Bell or Steve Jobs, someone would have invented new stuff. In killing Al Queda strategists remotely, to protect our military personnel, we have created far more people who have vowed vengeance. It was clear from day one that the test of the Bush policy in Afghanistan, and the much worse decision in Iraq, was whether we could kill terrorists faster than we create new ones. The evidence is in, we can't.

For a politician like Rand Paul to prevail, he or she needs to find allies both in his party and across the aisle, and he or she needs to play the long game. The current contretemps over the Federal budget illustrates the lack of a long game by the Teas that has any chance of prevailing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders reached last-minute agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown, according to a Republican senator who also said congressional leaders would push for passage as soon as possible.

The Dow Jones industrial average soared on the news that the threat of default was easing, rising roughly 200 points by late morning.

"I understand they've come to an agreement but I'm going to let the leader announce that," Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said as she walked into a meeting of Senate Republicans called to review details of the emerging deal struck by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.

Officials said the proposal called for the Treasury to have authority to continue borrowing through Feb. 7, and the government would reopen through Jan. 15.

There was no official comment from the White House, although congressional officials said administration aides had been kept fully informed of the negotiations.

While the emerging deal could well meet resistance from conservatives in the Republican-controlled House, the Democratic Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, has signaled she will support the plan and her rank and file is expected to vote for it in overwhelming numbers.

That raised the possibility that more Democrats than Republicans would back it, potentially causing additional problems for House Speaker John Boehner as he struggles to manage his tea party-heavy majority.

Two things are often said in this town: “A day is a year in politics.” And, “It’s all about 2014.”

Combined, the two statements mean that much can happen between now and the midterm elections next year, when Republicans hope to hold the House and gain the Senate — and Democrats intend to hold the Senate and recover the House.

Each respective goal is equally possible depending on the same single significant determinant: whether Ted Cruz stops talking.

While that thought settles in, we pause to note that, right now, the idea that Republicans could convince anyone that they should be allowed to deliver milk, much less hold the nation’s purse strings, seems remote....

Please remember who controlled both houses of congress during Bush's last 2 years. They could have defunded the NSA, or filibustered. Bush did a few things right and many things wrong. I will not defend him.

Obama and his forces have had 7 years to clean the NSA and Patriot acts up. Snowden has been vilified by most of the insiders.(except possibly Rand Paul) Paul is an interesting fellow.

Bard--if you, or your favored politicians, actually had any skills we could develop a list of things we could agree on and get them done. The first item on this list of Rand Paul sayings is among them. The rest? Interesting is a very kind term:

Quote:

"In the same interview, he said, 'I think torture is always wrong' and that 'our country should have a higher ideal than that.'"

Health Care

â¢ "We need to get insurance out of the way and let the consumer interact with their doctor the way they did basically before World War II," Paul said in an interview with Kentucky public TV on Dec. 2, 2002.

â¢ "I think you don't have a right to happiness -- you have the right to the pursuit of happiness," Paul, an ophthalmologist, said in a 2009 Kentucky town hall meeting. "[I]f you think you have the right to health care, you are saying basically that I am your slave. I provide health care. ... My staff and technicians provide it. ... If you have a right to health care, then you have a right to their labor."

Medicare

â¢ "The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed -- socialism doesn't work," Paul said on Kentucky public TV on June 16, 1998. "You have ... no price fluctuation."

Capitalism

â¢ "We have very little vestige left of laissez-faire capitalism," Paul said in a speech at a Boston tea party rally in 2009. "We have a largely regulated economy, and we cannot let capitalism take the blame for this, or we will have less capitalism."

"The other thing just infuriates me is that they blame greed," Paul said at the rally. "Not that greed is a good thing to have. ... But it is an indirect way of blaming capitalism. What is greed? Greed is an excess of self-interest, but what drives capitalism? Self-interest and profit. They are good things."

Social Security

â¢ Paul has alternately advocated eliminating Social Security and just eliminating the program as it's known today.

"I think the average American is smart enough to make their own investments," he told Kentucky public TV in October 1998. "The more freedom the better ... Reform is going to happen, and I hope it's privatization."

â¢ In 1999, Paul told Kentucky public TV that some vestige of the current system should be maintained, calling for a "a baseline ... that is sort of a security net" that allows for some social security money to remain in government hands while the rest is invested individually by future recipients.

Civil Rights Act

â¢Paul's take on the 1964 Civil Rights Act kicked off the discussion of his overall views. As the Courier-Journal reports it, the infamous series of national interviews after Paul won the Republican Senate nomination was not the first time Paul had addressed the matter.

"Should it be prohibited for public, taxpayer-financed institutions such as schools to reject someone based on an individual's beliefs or attributes? Most certainly," Paul wrote in a May 2002 letter to the editor. "Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed-and-breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn't want noisy children? Absolutely not. Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered."

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